


Everything's Gone Wrong Somehow

by starsandauras



Series: The World's a Beast of a Burden [3]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Anger, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-13
Updated: 2019-06-13
Packaged: 2020-05-02 10:03:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19196638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsandauras/pseuds/starsandauras
Summary: In the Church of Saint Adama Landama, after the massacre at the Waking Sands, Brigid tries to cope.





	Everything's Gone Wrong Somehow

Just five minutes. That was all she wanted, just five Twelve blessed minutes. Time to sit, time to cry, time to come to grips with it all.

The Scions, nearly all dead within their own halls, the survivors kidnapped. Taken by the Empire. She should have seen it _how had she not seen it_? She could see such things, had seen so many other things.

_But never anything important,_ her mind whispered to her, venom dripping from a snake’s fangs. _You didn’t see your mother, your father, barely even the Calamity itself. Why would you ever see something such as this?_ She choked back a sob, unwilling to let herself look weak in front of those who were helping them, even if Marques was the only one there. He was sweet and quiet, unlikely to tell anyone of her tears. Still, she could hardly let herself sob on a veritable stranger when she refused to let herself do the same in front of _family._

Five minutes. She could collect herself in five minutes, as long as she had the time. She could inhale, let everything out in fits and screams and sobs and flames and stabs. She could let it out and then exhale, present herself as nothing less than perfectly poised, perfectly in control, a pretty lass to stand tall (as tall as someone so small as she and still be accepted as Elezen could be) and look nonthreatening. Five minutes to go from deranged grief to steel dressed in silk. A skill long honed and always perfected, no one for anyone to suspect.

Until she was called to strike.

The problem, however, was that she was continuously being denied this simple thing, five minutes alone. Go buy this hammer, oh no wait I need this tool too, go with your family to… oh sweet Noraxia.

( _You didn’t see her either,_ the venom in her mind hissed.)

She was so tired of running around and fetching things for people. She knew the others wanted direction, needed to _do_ something, anything, to keep their minds off it. Have something they could control. But what Brigid wanted, what she _needed_ , was to do nothing so she could control _herself_. If nothing else but to quiet that evil little voice that hissed in her ear, forked tongue tickling her in all the worst ways.

And there was one moment, one bright shining moment where she thought she would get it, that moment of space to be herself, it was warm and within reach of cold fingertips, soothing like the sun through leaves, like a breeze blowing through her hair…

“Little flame…”

And the moment was gone, turned to icicles, cloudy days, and stagnant, humid air, at the sound of her oldest brother using his name for her.

“We’re needed,” he said softly, in his slow and gentle way. _Yes, always needed._ “We fear Imperial spies are about.”

Brigid inhaled, feeling the flames lick in her chest. “Can I be blowin’ them up?” she asked, and was glad that her voice didn’t sound nearly as brittle as it felt.

Llewellyn laughed, ever the indulgent brother who ignored how violent his baby sister was and had always been. Some would say that was a terrible quality for a healer, but Brigid never cared. “Of course you can,” he replied, as though she had asked for nothing more than an extra cookie after dinner.

She smiled, and was inwardly disappointed that it likely did look as brittle as she felt but pasted it on for him regardless. “Then be leadin’ the way,” she said, and went in for a quick hug. It was warm and sweet, everything an older brother should be.

It _wasn’t_ the five blasted minutes she wanted, the time to regroup, but it would serve for now. Perhaps she could make it five _bloody_ minutes instead, just for some variety in her horrible day.


End file.
